Being Thankful

We have had a great thanksgiving weekend spending time with friends and family and eating WAY too much food. We have also had some great trail running out enjoying the fine fall weather and God's creation: quiet times to continue the appreciation of how blessed we are and how thankful we should be.

We spent Thanksgiving proper at Ronda and Bill's for an amazing feast and good time with new and old friends. Friday started with some running and then time working on the fish tanks. We ended the day with more food and friends hanging out with the Rouse's in their new home in Canby.

I have been a bit of a slug in terms of training fighting some type of cold or flu. Ronda has been inviting me out with her squad which got me out the door on to the Wildwood trail in Forest Park for a couple of hours on Friday and Sunday morning. Friday we ran out and back starting at Germantown Road. Trisha ran long on Saturday morning while I cleaned out clogged sink drains and watched Harry Potter movies with the kids.

Sunday was a loop course from Upper Macleay park to the Nature trail down to Leif. Then to Wild Cherry and back to the park on Wildwood trail. The group even started early for me on Sunday so we could still make church :-) There is a nice gallery of park images here.

We had talked about doing some kind of turkey trot race this weekend but it just did not come together. Have to try for a jingle bell run.

Besides getting me out for longer runs, Ronda also tagged me for 5 random little facts:

1. I grew up in a little northern town called Prince George, B.C. Canada. Great town to grow up in. Great town to leave after you are grown up.

2. I once planted over 100, 000 tree seedlings in 4 months doing my summer job as a tree planter in the wilds of British Columbia. I even looked pretty similar to this guy minus the safety hat: link. This was great training for becoming an ultra runner and reminds me to be very thankful for my desk job.

3. In college I bred and raised Siamese fighting fish (Betta splendens). This was how I learned patience...ask me about it on a long run some time :-)

4. I prefer cold, day old pizza over any other type. Meat lovers. Not too much cheese.

5. My first trail race was the Trail Mix 25 km run in Bloomington Minnesota on April 19, 2003. Ran this with my friend Steve who was encouraging me to try longer runs. This was back when I thought Minnesota was hilly :-)

All over but the conference

The submissions deadline for EclipseCon 2008 has come and gone. Time for some reflection.

Browsing the submissions system we have over 474 proposals for tutorials, short and long talks.

In the Committer and Contributor category (track) that I am responsible for, we have 7 long talks, 8 short talks and 2 tutorials proposed.
I am particularly fond of: So You Want to Run: EclipseCon Exercise :-)

Jump in and voice your opinion.

You are invited to review the submissions, ask for more information, and provide comments and critiques.

Once again it is your chance to get involved and shape a part of Eclipse.

Lizards and Snakes

After a great run with Ronda, Stacey and Tom to start the day, Leah, Cole and I went to the Reptile Show and Sale.

Joining up with our friends Mark, Hailey and Jake we drove down to the Portland Expo center for the show.

It was cool. More snakes, geckos, frogs and chameleons than you can shake a stick at. The vendors were all really friendly and open to questions. The kids got to handle pretty much everything but an alligator...and they even asked to do that! Corn snakes and bearded dragons appear to be Cole and Leah's favorites. Mice, albino geckos and the larger chameleons round out the top five.

With Trisha's standing edict of "No snakes!", I believe the family is leaning towards the dragon and I see some type of cold blooded animal besides fish taking up residence in our home in the not too distant future.

With our church annual Thanksgiving Soup and Bread I had better get out for another run today so I can have the appetite to properly sample all the great food!

Eclipse DemoCamps

There is an effort to have Eclipse DemoCamps around the globe in November and December.

What is an Eclipse DemoCamp?
Stealing from the wiki:

Eclipse DemoCamp is an opportunity to showcase all of the cool interesting technology being built by the Eclipse community. It is also an opportunity for you to meet Eclipse enthusiasts in your city.

The format of the DemoCamp is pretty informal. The idea is for a group of Eclipse enthusiasts to meet up and demo what they are doing with Eclipse. The demos can be of research projects, Eclipse open source projects, applications based on Eclipse, commercial products using Eclipse, whatever you think might be of interest to the attendees. The only stipulation is that it is Eclipse related.

Sounds good to me. I signed up for the Demo Camp in Portland, Oregon.

Ensure to organize / find / attend a demo camp in your local area.


Also plan to get your EclipseCon submissions in...the November 19th deadline is almost here.Tutorial, long talk, short talk: you decide how best to share your expertise.